For the past forty years or so, "southern gospel" has named a professional musical style associated with white fundamentalists and evangelicals in the US South.1For an extended discussion of "southern gospel" see, Douglas Harrison, Then Sings My Soul: The Culture of Southern Gospel Music (UrbanaChampaign: University of Illinois Press, 2012), 25, 80109. The interviews are actually excerpts taken from long conversations filmed in a homey setting in which The Martins sit side-by-side on a large couch facing the camera and Bill Gaither sits in an overstuffed armchair to the right of the frame. The camera cuts back and forth between The Martins and Gaither, occasionally taking in the four of them in a wide shot. It is difficult to lend much credence to this account unless Gloria Gaither's opinion and judgment plays a much more determinative role in the Gaither image and Homecoming productions than is generally allowed or assumed. Christ's return coincides with the rapture of living Christians and the raising of the righteous dead to heaven. Decade. Actress. For more on The Martins's biography, see the following section and note 41. The Martins's arrival on the national gospel scene participates in a familiar narrative of the country kids from Nowheresville, USA, making it big. Key figures include Ira Sankey (the evangelist Dwight Moody's song leader), Homer Rodeheaver (Billy Sunday's music director), and George Beverly Shea (Billy Graham's most famous soloist). There is an associationalas opposed to primarily musicallogic to this appeal that tracks with broader "patterns of cultural experience and affiliation." Joyce Martin Sanders is an American singer who, along with her siblings Jonathan Martin and Judy Martin Hess, is best known as a member of the Christian country trio The Martins. Music publishers of seven-shape notational gospel music and the convention singing tradition to which these publishers catered were familiar with the term for much of the twentieth century. Taylor's development of the social imaginary builds on (but also departs from) Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 2006). . I recommend this DVD highly. Winter's Bone. From Arkansas With Love. The peer reviewers for Southern Spaces provided generous feedback that sharpened my thinking and refined the essay's argument considerably. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_30', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_30').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Indeed, the style of four-part male harmony for which professional southern gospel is most well-known has been historically linked to the practice of piety and lived religious devotion in the premillennial dispensationalist tradition.31Premillennial dispensationalism has been the dominant theological paradigm for fundamentalist evangelicals in the United States since the mid-nineteenth century. As Stephen Shearon has noted, both white and black gospel have "liked aspects of what the other was doing" ever since blacks and whites began singing sacred music near one another in North America. Navigate. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_11', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_11').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); The rise of "southern" gospel emerged in response to a network of cultural tensions, social conflicts, and religious instabilities.12These longstanding conflicts precede the twentieth century. Most fundamentalists and many conservative evangelicals believe this return will be presaged by certain historical events, including cataclysmic conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land, the rise of Anti-Christ, and the emergence of a one-world order. Recreational tourism is a cornerstone of Arkansas's economy and reputation.56For income distributions by state, see "Per Capita Income by State," Bureau of Business and Economic Research. The Martins's singing by the sea resonates with the disjunction of three "kids" from a cold-water backwoods shack harmonizing in an exotic locale with an international gospel touring company. From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism. Mae is her 18-year-old daughter. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, The Martins performed mostly in the southern half of the Mississippi Delta region and recorded self-financed albums. Biography Mini Bio (1) Joyce Martin-Sanders is known for Gaither's Pond (1997). Fox, Pamela. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_26', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_26').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); From this traditionalist perspective, CCM's project of reclaiming the devil's music for the Lord amounts to little more than evangelical apologia set to music in "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs: notionally Christian tunes that overlay the stylistic trends and tastes of secular music with lyrics about a love beyond all measure, directed toward a pronominally vague beloved who could be divine, or more sublunary. "Fundamentalism" indicates evangelicals for whom militancy in resistance to liberalism is the defining feature of lived religion.22George Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 15. The Martins are a Christian music vocal trio composed of three siblings: Joyce Martin Sanders, Jonathan Martin, and Judy Martin Hess. "39Jennifer Lena, Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 2. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_39', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_39').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); My approach attends to southern gospel as a musical style,40Lower compositional sophistication, more uneven production quality, and rougher cuts by commercial standardsall defining features of the southern gospel sound of the past twenty yearscan function for many evangelicals and fundamentalists as indices of a more real music and catalysts for a more authentic experience of the religious self. Still, the cultivation and creation of twentieth-century commercial black gospel's golden age (19451960) was largely rooted in Chicago, Philadelphia, and other urban centers in the Midwest and Northeast where many black southerners moved during the Great Migration. He just finished getting a tech degree in musical engineering. Absence of biographical detail about The Martins clears space for the Arkansas imaginary to operate. As Stephen Shearon has noted, both white and black gospel have "liked aspects of what the other was doing" ever since blacks and whites began singing sacred music near one another in North America. Their continuing appeal has involved a narrative about their Arkansas identity as proof of authenticity as individual performers and for the genre of southern gospel. Trinity Broadcasting Network is the D.B.A. of Trinity Christian Center of Santa Ana Inc., a California religious non-profit corporation holding 501(C)(3) status with the Internal Revenue Service. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_40', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_40').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); while emphasizing cultural texts and discourses. For a fuller discussion of "southern" as a racial signifier and readings of race and white gospel see Harrison, Then Sings My Soul, 96103. Following the rapture is Tribulation, a seven-year period during which Anti-Christ reigns on earth, Millennium (during which time Satan is bound), and ultimately the establishment and eternal reign of Christ's kingdom. The Martins's music signals that what makes this trio a southern gospel group is its commitment to a worldview and way of life that is place-based, class-bound, and consistent with values and assumptions that prevail in white, fundamentalist evangelicalism. Joyce: We went to Indianapolis [in 1992] with Michael English and Mark Lowry [of the Gaither Vocal Band and the Gaithers' inner circle]. 436 (1997): 169188. When and where did baseball player Bob Joyce die? Unlike "northern urban" gospel (a phrase with no currency outside academe), it is the preferred way to self-identify within the culture and the most widely recognized way to describe the music to outsiders. Randall Balmer, My Eyes of Have Seen the Glory: A Journey Into the Evangelical Subculture in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); and Donald Dayton and Robert Johnson, eds., The Variety of Evangelicalism, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001). tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_54', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_54').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); connecting their identities, the group's history, and their Arkansas roots with the force of southern gospel music. Winter's Bone, set in the rural Ozarks, vividly portrays the psychosocial costs of geographical isolation, lack of economic and educational opportunity, and sense of cultural confinement associated with life in the deep woods of Ozark hill country. The values implied by customs and conditions are elemental in stereotypes of "Arkansas" as hillbilly territory. In the early 1990s, two sisters and their brother, Judy, Joyce, and Jonathan, then in their late teens and performing as The Martins, began appearing with the Gaither Homecoming Friends. Lord, let it be so, not just a dream. Joyce Martin-Sanders is known for Gaither's Pond (1997). With respect to The Martins, the same music on an album titled From Hyde Park With Love, or even From Hilton Head With Love, would likely not be considered southern gospel by most of its intended audiences. NQC's leadership recently announced that the event will take up residence in a regional conference center at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.36Sheldon Shafer, "National Quartet Convention Ending Long Run in Louisville," Louisville Courier-Journal.com, September 3, 2013, accessed October 1, 2013, http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20130903/SCENE04/309030069/. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. 3,147) where they became a popular regional Christian music act. For more on Gaither Homecomings and their role and appeal in southern gospel and beyond, see ibid., 110136. For an extended discussion of "southern gospel" see, Douglas Harrison. In this context, gospel music functions as a style of vernacular religious entertainment and a form of evangelical cultural experience transcending denominations or confessional traditions. For more on the rise and spread of southern gospel regionally and nationally, see James R. Goff Jr., Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel (Chapel HIll: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 50109; Don Cusic, The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel Music (Madison: Popular Press, 1990), 153162; 171176. The video cuts from the Hawaiian excerpt back to the homey interview setting. To see the King. She has two children. Joyce Martin is a well known gospel singer. Joyce Martin is a well known gospel singer. Compact Disc. Media releases promoting The Martins tout this diversity and eclecticism. Nor is its cultural function exclusively or even primarily of scholarly interest for what it may tell us about southern whiteness in an ever more racially diverse and pluralistic world. Alexandria, Ind. After Grant's divorce from Gary Chapman, her symbolic function in southern gospel expanded to include the corrupting effect of musical compromises on personal morality and the heternormative family.Southern gospel's disdain of CCM can come off as a kind of "Sister Bertha Better Than You" self-righteousness.27Here, I am borrowing an image first popularized by Ray Stevens in "Mississippi Squirrel Revival," on He Thinks He's Ray Stevens (Universal, 1987, MCAC-5517). tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_28', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_28').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Professional southern gospel emerged from a Reconstruction-era subculture of poor and working-class white southerners. [5] Jonathan Martin (b. Business as Mission . "Place" signifies a physical location, a material culture, a set of affiliated social relations, and more nebulous meanings associated with place as a concept. See Shearon et al., "Gospel Music," and Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News in Bad Times (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2001 [1979]) and Harrison, "Why Southern Gospel Music Matters," Religion and American Culture 18, no. The Willow Creek megachurch, under the leadership of Bill Hybels, is the most prominent example of a seeker-sensitive church. North American gospel history and the cultural realities of contemporary southern gospel defy further generalization. Joyce Martin Sanders Weight Loss In essence, we are an agricultural area. The. These bonds seem heavily predicated on shared assumptions that performers' professional legitimacy and artistic authenticity arise from a God-given prodigiousness untainted by the artifice of formal education or the contrivance of worldliness, which in southern gospel culture is associated with urban(e) or cosmopolitan ways of life. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_50', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_50').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); southern gospel audiences have historically bonded with performers who come to fame through place-based narratives of discovery. A journal about real and imagined spaces and places of the US South and their global connections. This element of cultural separatism has reemerged in the past generation within southern gospel. "62 Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 5. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1524_1_62', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1524_1_62').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); The gestalt of Arkansas rusticity associated with The Martins serves to understand their sophisticated harmonies. Dayton, The Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury Press, 1987); and Dodrill, "Evangelicalism Examined . Home News Random Article Install Wikiwand Send a suggestion Uninstall Wikiwand Our magic isn't perfect But it also resonates with less militant but hardly less conservative evangelicalsmostly whitewho respond powerfully to its organizing themes: proud piety, traditionalist notions of family, and unapologetic sentimentality about evangelistic faith and religious community. The Martins Biography by John Bush A brother-sisters trio of a cappella gospel harmonizers, the Martins consist of Joyce Martin McCollough, Jonathan Martin and Judy Martin Hess. Just as I Am: 30 Favorite Old Time Hymns, was nominated for a 1998 Grammy in the same category. This pan-stylistic hybridity was apparent in the group's repertoire before their Gaither affiliation. Southern gospel has found itself in alliances with black gospel traditions and the black church. (Jennifer Jones, "Natalie Grant Responds after Leaving Grammys Early," Christianitytoday.com, January 29, 2014, accessed January 31, 2014, http://www.christiantoday.com/article/mass.wedding.at. And that was actually the first time Bill heard us sing. However, a 1993 appearance on the Gaither Homecoming series helped transform The Martins from an avocational regional trio into a professional act with a national following in fundamentalist Christian entertainment. 33 Southern gospel product sales The Gaither interview invites viewers to imagine them as representing a set of hill-country valuesa love of hunting, closeness to nature, self-sufficiency, and cultural isolationthat Blevins argues have over the course of two centuries come to stand in for all (white) Arkansans.58The cultural difference between the Ozark/Ouachita and Mississippi Delta regions of Arkansas is aptly captured by/in two recent films. Lord, is this my time. Michael actually took us there and Mark and Mike tried to figure out a way for Bill [Gaither] to hear us sing. See Heilbut, "Black Urban Hymnody." Fortunately, new and forthcoming work in the study of southern gospel is beginning to scrutinize Gloria Gaither's role as a Christian entrepreneur, thinker, and writer much more closely. Lower compositional sophistication, more uneven production quality, and rougher cuts by commercial standardsall defining features of the southern gospel sound of the past twenty yearscan function for many evangelicals and fundamentalists as indices of a more real music and catalysts for a more authentic experience of the religious self.